The Familiar Road

They say that repeated use strengthens the neural pathways governing our thoughts, words and movements.  It must be the same with well-travelled roads.

One journey has been constant throughout my life. Every school holiday, every Christmas and Easter, we have driven, often in the dark, down the lonesome country lanes that lead to my grandmother’s farm in West Wales.

The farm has changed over that time. Though she rents the farmland out now, I can just about remember feeding newborn lambs and playing with Charlie the sheepdog.  As for the journey itself, however, that never seemed to change. It’s true I’ve ditched my walkman But we have always travelled the same roads, passing though the same, unaging villages until we reached the emblem of the wolf that has guarded the farm for decades.

Even when we moved to Swansea and I gained a new home, a new church, a new school and new friends, we ended up at the same destination, passing the same landmarks, albeit by a shorter route.

Except for one Sunday when the destination did change. I was still in bed when we had the phone call. My mother pried open the door and told me that her mother had had another stroke. At the time, I thought that meant another mini-stroke, a so-called warning shot, not a full-blown, life-changing stroke.

After the service that morning, my father and I made that same journey once again. We talked about his father and his illness as we travelled westward. I have just one memory of my grandfather. We were going somewhere. I think it might have been a hospital appointment. My grandmother was shouting at him, telling him to ‘put his boots on’. For some reason, the fact that she said ‘boots’ instead of ‘shoes’ sticks in my mind.  Not that it was her choice of words left him confused and unable to answer. For years, I assumed he was deaf. When I was older, I realised that dementia had made him deaf not to words, but to meaning itself.  

And so we found ourselves in a stroke ward. It’s difficult to forget the inhuman sound of a human struggling to speak. One patient who tried every now and then to shout and scream sounded as if he was being strangled. My grandmother, too, tried to force out some words when we saw her. She seemed to choke, and then I think she cried. When it was time to leave, I told that I was sorry to see her like this and that I would pray for her. She raised her right hand, the one side of her body she could still control, and waved us goodbye. That voiceless gesture, somehow full of her personality, reminded me that her body undeniably belonged to her.

I am still here.

Later, after we had left, she was given a paper and pen. This is the end, she wrote.

She was wrong, of course.

Over the months that followed, we made that old journey again and again, this time, though, with a different destination. They say that our brains can find new ways of navigating damaged neural networks. With time, my grandmother learned to bypass her body’s stroke-broken nerves. Unslurred speech replaced the silence. Eventually, we could drive past the hospital, pulling up instead at the farm.

But there was something different about the route. I realised that we no longer drove through the villages that had once been fixed markers along the journey. It had been months since I had been through Roberston Wathen, Llanddewi Velfrey and Slebech. During my grandmother’s time in hospital, they had built a new road bypassing that quaint mishmash of Anglo-Celtic and Viking names.

And so the journey was, like the destination itself, slightly different to before.

Am I self-righteous?

“Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."”

Mark 2:17

A few years ago, I was approached by a woman handing out food. She was wearing a ‘Muslims love Jesus’ t-shirt. A thought went through my head: you don’t know who Jesus is, and I do. I said no, thank you and walked on. Was I being self-righteous? Yes. I was sure that I was right and she was wrong. More than that, I thought that made be better than her. But there is nothing in my faith that gives me the right to feel like superior to anyone else. In that moment, I was being self-righteous in spite of my faith, not because of it.  

Sometimes, we are justified in our belief that some Christians are acting self-righteously.  At other times, though, a Christian may come across as self-righteous because the way she approaches faith differently to someone who doesn’t share her beliefs.

We live in a culture of self-improvement. Whether it’s your personal best or your curriculum, it seems like most of us are trying to improve ourselves in one way or another. And so ‘spirituality’ becomes just another aspect of self-improvement. Through anything from mindfulness to the power of reason alone, we can become spiritually or morally enlightened. It is something each of us achieves in our own way and through our own effort. In this mindset, the plethora of spiritual and religious practices around us are merely alternative ways of seeking the same God.

Sometimes, the parable of the blind men and the elephant is used to explain how this works. You’ve probably heard it before. Three blind men touch different parts of an elephant to try and find out what it is. The first man feels the trunk and decides that it must be a snake. The second touches the side of the elephant and is certain that it is a wall. The last man, after putting his hand on the trunk, assumes that he is holding a spear. The idea, of course, is that we each perceive God in different but equally valid ways.

From that perspective, the Christian who claims to be right about God seems to be saying that he is wiser and more spiritually enlightened than anybody else. But Christians don’t believe that you can come to a greater knowledge of God through human effort. In Christianity, we can only know God because He has revealed Himself to us. (Surprisingly, God doesn’t necessarily reveal himself to the most ‘spiritual’ people. In fact, it’s often the opposite.)

In that way, the God of Christianity is vastly different to the God of that parable. It’s no coincidence that the story uses an animal to represent God. The God of the parable is an unknown, even unknowable that cannot speak to the people he has created. Another parable, one where the blind men touch the hands, feet and chest of another human being, would have a very different ending. No one with an ounce of compassion would let the blind men come to such flawed conclusions about the object that are touching. Yet that is the God of the parable. And what kind of a God is that?

While the claim that only Christians can know God may seem exclusive, the God of the parable is even more exclusive because everyone is excluded from fully knowing that God.

When the Apostle Paul, one of the earliest Christian missionaries, came across a group of people who believed in such a God, he didn’t claim to be superior to them. Instead, he told them that he himself knew the God they were trying so hard to find:

“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: . So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you…God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him, (Acts 7:22-27)

According to Paul, the unknown God was not unknowable. In fact, that unknown God wants us to know Him. While Paul might sound self-righteous when he claims to know God when they do not, he was not claiming to have gained an understanding of God through his own effort.

Paul was never an ideal candidate for spiritual enlightenment. Though he had led a deeply ‘religious’ life, all his spiritual practices hadn’t led him anywhere near a state of moral perfection. In fact, when God was first revealed to him, Paul was his way to Damascus, where he hoped to find and kill Christians. As he was travelling, a light came down from heaven and Paul heard a voice saying; “Why do you persecute me?” Moments later, the person speaking revealed His identity: Jesus.

None of this gave Paul any reason to be self-righteous. He had considered Jesus a heretic, yet Jesus was revealed Himself to him. Far from claiming to be spiritually superior, Paul would later describe himself ‘the worst of sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15). Elsewhere in the Bible, he wrote that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27)

When I thought I was better than that Muslim woman, I was being unchristian. Far from being superior to anyone else, I am just a ‘weak thing of this world’. Yet the God who created me has revealed Himself to me. And He revealed Himself to all of us when, unlike the unknowable God of the parable, He entered our world so that we could know Him. He died and rose from the dead so that man’s broken relationship with God could be restored. And since the offer of a personal relationship with God is open to everyone, weak, unenlightened and morally-imperfect Christians like me really have nothing to be self-righteous about.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8

Have I been brainwashed?

'What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe. That's child abuse.'

Richard Dawkins

According to Richard Dawkins, I have been brainwashed. While perhaps not everyone would go as far as he does, I don’t think it’s uncommon to assume that children will just believe whatever religious truths their parents tell them. Even other Christians I know sometimes assume I accepted my parents’ faith unquestioningly. But those of us from Christian backgrounds don’t all pop out of the womb reciting the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit..."

Like many of my friends from Christian families, I only fully accepted my parents’ faith as a teenager.

I wonder if Richard Dawkins has forgotten what it is like to be a child. Of course, children are more likely to hold irrational beliefs. Most children believe in Father Christmas just because their parents tell them it is true. But even young children eventually question that belief. And if a child questions what their parents tell them about Santa, why wouldn’t they question was their parents tell them about God?

As it happens, I questioned the existence of God a few years before I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I remember coming home from church one Sunday and wondering whether God existed. I was perhaps three or four, maybe even young. I decided at that moment that God did exist. While I seem to remember having a vague idea that God must be the explanation for everything around me, I doubt I had any clear reason for coming to that conclusion.  I’m not sure anyone at that age would have been able to make a rational decision about the existence of God. But the fact that I even thought about it shows that I was able to accept or reject what my parents told me about God. I chose to believe in God. Though that choice may have been influenced by the beliefs of my parents, it was nevertheless a choice.

As a child, I always knew that most people didn’t share my belief in God. After all, it’s not like I grew up in a monastery. I grew up in a working-class community with just two small churches. There were perhaps 50 or 60 Christians out of the 3000 people living in Maerdy.

At school, I couldn’t avoid being challenged about my belief in God, particularly not when everyone knew that my father was a ‘priest’ or ‘vicar’ (though technically he was neither). My classmates loved to tell me that what I believed was a load of rubbish. And, like any child, I was more than happy to tell them that they were wrong. Even in infants’ school, I was asked questions like ‘Where did God come from?’ and ‘Doesn’t science explain everything?’. I hear the same objections from adults today. If anything, the kids on the school bus were more sceptical than most atheists I know. Those children questioned whether Jesus had even existed.

Although I have believed in God since I was three or four, it wasn’t until the age of thirteen or fourteen that I became a Christian. It’s not that I didn’t believe in the core truths of Christianity. I didn’t doubt that Jesus was the Son of God who had died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. I was sure that He had risen from the dead, meaning that those who believed in Him could go to Heaven. I thought of them as facts, but nothing more than that. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus seemed irrelevant to me. It had less of an impact of my life than my beloved Doctor Who.

When I became a Christian as a teenager, I finally understood that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection restored the broken relationship between man and God. I realised that I could have a personal relationship with God if I accepted that Jesus had died for me on the cross. I had always been told that I needed to respond personally to Jesus’ death on the cross. When I finally I did respond, it was again my own choice to do so.

Not all Christians from church-going backgrounds will have a similar story to mine. I know plenty of ‘cradle Christians’ who can’t remember a time when they didn’t believe. That doesn’t make them gullible. In fact, many of the brightest Christians I know can’t remember a time when they didn’t believe in Christianity. Ultimately, they have made a decision to carry on practicing their faith into adulthood. Others have not.

As a child, I knew that I believed in God without knowing why. Twenty years later, I know exactly why I continue to believe in God. And while I never really questioned the core beliefs of Christianity in my childhood, I know now why I continue to believe them.

I haven’t been brainwashed. When I came to a belief in God, I knew perfectly well that not everyone shared that belief. When I became a Christian, I did so not because my parents forced me to, but because I had decided that I needed to follow God. Ten years later, it’s a decision I make, with the help of God, every day. 

No, it isn't biblical to keep migrant children in cages

Before Donald Trump abandoned his abhorrent policy of separating young children from their parents at the US border, his officials tried to justify the approach with a number of creative arguments. In one particularly bizarre press conference, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that it was ‘biblical’ to enforce the law, citing a verse from the Book of Romans in the New Testament. When someone uses the Bible to justify a controversial policy, it is easy to dismiss them as fundamentalists who take their faith too seriously. But, as is so often the case, their problem is not that they attach too much importance to what the Bible says, but that they don’t know what it says.

So what does the Book of Romans say? Jeff Sessions was referring to this part of Romans:

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.”

There’s no denying that these are difficult verses that have divided Christians throughout history. Does this really mean that Christians have a duty to obey everything a government says? Clearly not; the writer of Romans, the Apostle Paul, ended up under house arrest after repeatedly ignoring orders to stop preaching.  There seem to be other exceptions to this rule elsewhere in the Bible. In the story of Moses, God blesses the midwives who refuse to carry out Pharaoh’s order to murder Jewish babies. They even lied to Pharaoh when he questioned them about it.  The Bible implies that disobedience was the only option in this case; “the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had commanded.” If a political leader’s authority ultimately comes from God, then it is God that you must obey when that leader does things which ask you to break God’s law.

But whatever the practical implications of this tricky passage for the citizen, there’s no way in which this verse can be used by lawmakers to justify unjust acts. This is a command to a citizen, not a ruler. Jeff Sessions seems to be advocating a sort of republican Divine Right of Kings, whereby criticisms of a government’s policies can be silenced by the claim that ‘God is on our side’. But, as Abraham Lincoln once said, the question is not whether God is on your side, but whether you are on his. Far from giving governments the right to do whether they please, Romans 13 places rulers under the authority of God, meaning that they themselves subject to a higher moral code. And as citizens, we have every right to judge leaders by their adherence to that moral code. *

This was something that would have all been too familiar to the people of biblical Israel. The kings of Israel, who had been appointed by God, were expected to rule with fairness. The book of Proverbs has this advice for kings:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
  for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
    defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Proverbs 31:8-9

Good advice, however, often goes unheeded. Whole books of the Old Testament are devoted to condemnations of kings who, though appointed by God, had failed to follow him. A failure to respect the rights of the vulnerable was almost always the result.  The words of the Prophet Isaiah are typical:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws,

to those who issue oppressive decrees,
 to deprive the poor of their rights
    and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
    and robbing the fatherless.”

Isaiah 10:1-2

If even kings who have been appointed by God can be condemned for their unjust treatment of poor and the oppressed, then it is absurd for any political leader to claim that they can act with impunity because their authority derives from God. It’s true that no nation today shares biblical Israel’s close relationship with God, but any leader who follows that same God is still bound by his moral standards. They should listen to the words of the prophets when they make decisions that affect the lives of others.

It would be overly simplistic to assume that any restrictions on immigration are unbiblical. But those who enforce those restrictions should so with fairness and respect. No amount of creative theology could justify the way we have seen the US government treat immigrants in the last few days. Even those who have broken the law by crossing the border should be treated with dignity. And any lawmaker who follows the God who repeatedly describes himself as the ‘father to the fatherless’ should think twice before taking children from their parents and putting them in cages.

*This is an excellent piece which explains why Jeff Sessions's use of these verse failed to take into account the rest of the Book of Romans, which deals with issues such as the equality between Christians of different ethnic backgrounds.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeff-sessions-immigration-children-parents-separated-bible-romans-13-a8405856.html

No god will ever forgive you?

“No god will forgive you.” That was the eye-catching headline on the front page of Friday’s Metro. The paper was quoting Catherine Devallonne, the mother of an au pair who was starved, tortured and murdered by her employers.

I can understand why she must feel that no god could forgive the people who murdered her daughter. Some things seem impossible for us to forgive. I think that sentiment is shared by a lot of people. If there really is a god out there who is capable of forgiveness, then there must be some crimes too terrible to forgive. That god would forgive a white lie, but not murder or genocide. But if that god exists, then it is not the God of Christianity.

In Christianity, God is capable of forgiving every single sin. Most of the books of the Bible that were written after the death and resurrection of Jesus were written by a murderer. Before he himself had become a Christian, the Apostle (or Saint) Paul had travelled the Middle East so that he could he could find and kill Christians. He would later say: ‘I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.’1

Although he considered himself ‘the worst of sinners’, he considered himself forgiven by God.

But the Christian understanding of forgiveness is more complex than simply the forgiveness of individual acts of wrongdoing. The human race was made by God, like God and for God, yet now it lives without God. That is the sin of which everyone is guilty. It is the sin that leads to all others. That is the sin that, above all others, needs to be forgiven. As long as that sin remains unforgiven by God, then none of our other acts of wrongdoing can be forgiven. A refusal to ask God for this sin to be forgiven makes every other sin, no matter how seemingly small the sin, unforgivable. And once the sin of rejecting God is forgiven, all other sins can be forgiven.

That forgiveness is complete. The Bible uses a number of beautiful images to describe the extent of this forgiveness. According to the Book of Hosea,’[God] will trample [our] sins under his feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!’2

The Prophet Isaiah says that ‘though [our] sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ 3

My favourite, though, is in Psalm 103, which puts it like this- 'as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our [sins] from us.' When I read this, I imagine someone running around and around the world trying to find ‘the east’ without ever finding it. God has put that infinite distance between me and my sins. Every wrong thing that I have done, every wrong thing that I will do, has been forgiven by God.

That is the heart of Christianity.  Someone who has not asked God to forgiveness is not a Christian. Take, for example, Donald Trump. I don’t mean to descend into smug Trump-bashing, but Donald Trump has said that he ‘isn’t sure’ whether has asked God for forgiveness. And if he really means that, then he is not a Christian. Full stop.  It is not his policies or behaviour that tell us whether he is a Christian, but whether he has asked God for forgiveness. He may seem to be the darling of many (not all) white evangelicals, but in fact his refusal to ask God for forgiveness brings into question whether he truly knows what it means to be a Christian.  

To be a Christian is to know that you have been forgiven.  Like so much of Christianity, God’s ability to forgive completely is seen most clearly when we remember the innocent man who died on the cross. Though the people around him were committing what Christians believe to be the most serious crime in history, Jesus asked His father, God, to forgive the people who were crucifying Him. Later, on that same day, He showed us what it meant to be forgiven by God. After acknowledging that Jesus had done nothing wrong, the criminal on the cross beside Him asked Jesus to ‘remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus replied that the criminal would be with Him in paradise. We don’t exactly what that criminal thought, but I assume that he understood that Jesus’ death could lead to his sins being forgiven. That last-minute understanding, without any accompanying good works, was all that he needed to be given a place in heaven.

No god will forgive you? The God-on-the-Cross can. 

1. 1 Timothy 1:16 

2. Micah 7:19

3. Isaiah 1:18

4. Luke 23

Building a Christian homeland?

Last week, Viktor Orban, the right-wing Prime Minister of Hungary, vowed to build a ‘Christian homeland with national values’. Elsewhere, politicians from Putin to Trump have claimed to be champions of Christianity as they pursue anti-immigrant agendas.  

It would be easy for me to rant about the fact that using so-Christian identity as an excuse to ignore those in need breaks Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves. There is, however, a bigger fundamental problem with the way politicians like Orban talk about Christian identity. The idea of a Christian homeland is unchristian not only because it is racist, but because it is a contradiction in terms.

The central event in Christianity is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is at this moment that the God of the Bible ceases to be the God of one people. In the Old Testament, God revealed himself to the people of biblical Israel. He made promises that they would have a homeland and that He would be their God. Of course, as creator of the world, God still deserved the worship of people from all nations. And many people from outside the nation of Israel (Gentiles) decided to worship the God of Israel before Jesus. For the most part, however, they did this by becoming part of the people of Israel.

All this changed with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Before He returned to Heaven, Jesus commanded his followers to ‘make disciples of all nations.’  God had been the God of Israel, but now He would be the God of people from ‘all nations’. Providing they believed that Jesus was the Son of God and had died to save them from their sins, they could be part of their promises that had previously been reserved for the nation of Israel. In the words of one book of the Bible that was written for those who struggled with this new idea; “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  

You can see this development in the way the Bible is written. The Old Testament is mainly written in Hebrew. The New Testament, meanwhile, is written in Greek, which was spoken as a second language across the Mediterranean. The message of Christianity was intended to be spread as widely as possible. And so the first people to embrace Christianity were Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Roman, Turkish and Libyan-to name just a few.

Since that time, people from every country across the world have abandoned their traditional beliefs in favour of Christianity. Some see that as a tragedy, but those same critics are strangely reluctant to return to the traditional beliefs of their own ancestors. Long before Western missionaries began travelling to Africa, Asia and South America, the West itself abandoned its own traditional beliefs. If Victor Orban were a true nationalist, he would be calling on his followers to return to the worship of Isten, the Hungarian god of the sky.

Of course, many Western countries like Hungary have been influenced by Christian beliefs. But that does not justify the creation of a Christian homeland. Hungary has been influenced by Christianity precisely because there is no such as thing as a Christian homeland. It is the borderless nature of the 

Christian message that allowed those first Hungarian Christians to choose to follow God.

It’s true that Christianity has often become tied up in nationalist and imperialist projects. Empires have actively forced Christianity onto their subjects while missionaries have used the freedom offered by empire to spread Christianity. But you can embrace a message without embracing the messenger. Take Nigeria, for example. While its religious makeup might be influenced by the fact that it is a former British colony, today, many Nigerian Christians continue to practice their faith despite the risk from attacks by Islamist militants. Can anyone deny that their faith is entirely their own?

Not that those Nigerian Christians would be particularly welcome in Orban’s ‘Christian homeland’. What Orban really means by Christian is 'European'. When politicians like him appeal to the idea of Christian homeland, they forget that Christianity is intrinsically a faith that transcends borders. And it is a faith- ­not a cultural identity.  

With all his talk of a Christian homeland, Victor Orban might come across as a Christian extremist. The problem, however, is not that he attaches too much importance to Christianity, but that he doesn’t know what it is. 

Fallen women?

A fallen woman. If you’ve seen the film Philomena, you may have heard that horrible term. In the film, a journalist (Steve Coogan) helps Philomena (Judi Dench) track down the son who had been cruelly taken from her at the age of three. In the words of the nuns who separated her from her child, Philomena was a ‘fallen woman’. By that, they meant a woman whose child had been born out of wedlock. 

The misogyny is obvious. Where are the fallen men? Only one woman has ever given birth without the involvement of a man, and the nuns certainly wouldn’t have treated Mary in the way they treated Philomena. Yet it is the women who were labelled as fallen.  While mothers were punished for having a child out of wedlock, the fathers were left to carry on with their lives.  Despite being women themselves, the nuns judged other women by stricter moral standards than they judged men.

But the whole idea of labelling some people as ‘fallen’ is flawed in a deeper sense. In the Bible, the word ‘fallen’ has nothing to do with sex outside of marriage. It’s not even used to describe individuals. When Christians talk about a fallen world, they’re talking about the introduction of death, suffering and imperfection into this world as a result of humanity’s rejection of God. We disobey God’s law on a daily basis and we deny His authority over our lives. That is what sin is. And because Christians sin as well, they are still fallen.

Yes, those women were fallen. But so were the nuns. And they are just as fallen as me or you. So it was hypocritical for the nuns to treat so-called ‘fallen women’ as more sinful than themselves. And it would be just as hypocritical to look at the sins of the nuns and think ourselves better than them.

Taken from https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/the-adulterous-woman/. (N.B I haven't read it. I'm using the painting rather than endorsing what it says)

Jesus was once faced with someone who could be described as ‘a fallen woman’.  Some priests brought a man and woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and asked if they should stone her. For reasons I don’t fully understand, that was the punishment for having sex outside of marriage in the Old Testament. (Unless it was not consensual, in which case only the man would be punished.) Jesus replied that ‘any one of you that has not sinned should throw the first stone.’ One by one, everyone walked away. Jesus, the only one who had never sinned, was left alone with her. He let her go, telling her to ‘sin no more.’

Some people get very excited about this and start saying all sort of wild things about this. One sign I saw recently claimed that ‘Jesus was the first to decriminalise prostitution’. But Jesus’ last words are important- ‘sin no more’. According to Him, the woman had committed a sin. Jesus wasn’t saying that we can’t make moral judgements about someone else’s behaviour. Instead, he was telling us that we have no right to think that we are better than them.

Um, no, he wasn't...

We all reject God’s authority every day, even if we do it in different ways. And when you consider that Jesus broadened the definition of adultery to include looking with lust at another person, it’s clear that almost everyone is guilty of it in one form or another. No one is less innocent than anyone else. Only Jesus, the Son of God, was truly innocent. And all of us, nuns and ‘fallen’ women, are lost without the forgiveness that He offers. 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/23362491797135382/

No worries?

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

Though the saying may be 2000 years old- you might have guessed that it’s one of Jesus’- it’s still true today. In fact, science now tells us that worry and stress will shorten, rather than lengthen it.

But, even as a Christian, I don’t think that these words on their own offer much hope. If Jesus had stopped there, then he might as well have scrawled it down on as an empty inspirational quote on a public announcement board.

But, as you might have gathered, Jesus went on to explain why he could tell us not to worry.

“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!  And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the [rest of the] world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Luke 12:27-32

These words have meant a lot to me in times of uncertainty. I heard a sermon on these words during my AS exams. The Sunday before I got my results (which were unexpectedly in alphabetical order), I heard another minister speak about the same verses. And the same thing happened a year later, a few days before I got my A Level results. Since then, I’ve come back to them every exam season. Now that I’m in the midst of a discouraging job search, I find myself reading them several times a week.

Glib motivational sayings mean nothing to me because they are never spoken with authority. Bob Marley may tell us that ‘every little thing will be all right’, but how on earth would he know? Imagine saying that to someone with a terminal illness.

I feel the same thing when I see those ‘inspirational’ quotes on announcement boards in tube stations. They try to reassure us by saying that something is in control, but they rarely say what that thing is. Their words are powerless because the person who writes them lacks the authority to tell us that everything will work out.

Oh really?

But Jesus reassurances are different because He has the authority to say them. He is God. Those who believe in Him don’t have to worry because the God who created the flowers of the field is perfectly capable of looking after them. That doesn’t mean that everything will be all right. Even the most beautiful flower dies. But the point is that God is in control even when that happens.

But Jesus gives us another reason not to worry; “the Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”  Those who believe in Him don’t need to worry about their lives in this world because there is another after it. The ultimate promise that Jesus makes is that there is something more than the worry, stress and sadness of this world. He offers Heaven to those who believe in Him. We may not be satisfied with this world, but we will be satisfied in Heaven.

That’s only reassuring, of course, if you believe that Jesus has the authority to make that promise. If Heaven doesn’t exist, then those words can give us no hope. If Jesus was just a great teacher, then His promises here are meaningless. He would be a charlatan who could offer us nothing but His words would have no more power than Bob Marley’s to say that ‘every little thing will be all right’.   

But if He was more than a great teacher, then His words could not be more powerful.

"So how was your year abroad?"

“You studied in Paris?! That must have been amazing! How was it?”

It’s a question I used to dread. Even now, almost two years later, I find it difficult to answer.

I know what they’re thinking. They’re remembering  every weekend away in Paris, every idealised depiction in literature and every film starring the City of Love and then projecting all those expectations onto my year abroad. The result? Study abroad seems like a year-long, 24/7 holiday paid for by the European Union.

Funnily enough, I’ve had similar conversations in Paris.

“You study in London? That must be amazing! How is it?”

Most of the people who assume my year in Paris was amazing would be surprised to hear that same assumption being made about London.

I’ve enjoyed my time in London, but sadly my small flat bears little resemblance to the Victorian grandeur of 221B Baker Street. No, while I like lots of things about London, it is not the London of films and books and games of Monopoly. And even the good things about London don’t make the bad things in life any better. I loved my time in university. But not once, even in the height of dissertation season, was it a source of comfort that I lived near the Queen.

“How was it?”

My stock answer is as truthful as I can manage in just one short sentence.

“To be honest, I prefer London to Paris.”

I think it’s difficult for a lot of people to admit that they found the experience was underwhelming. Perhaps it’s even more difficult in the age of Instagram, where we see each unique experience shared with everyone else. It seems ungrateful not to enjoy something that everyone else assumes they would love to do themselves.

There are even higher expectations for those of us who are language students. We are meant to relish cultural immersion. We are told to ‘make the most of the experience.’ We are expected to be confident about our linguistic skills, completely unafraid to make mistakes. And this should be easy because we are of course love the language and culture that we study.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but by these standards, I was a terrible French student. Not in terms of my language ability (although there’s room for improvement there), but because I studied for mainly practical reasons. I love languages, but I only like French. Though are many things that I enjoy about France’s history and culture, I think there are more beautiful languages than French. I studied French because it was a useful language to learn before going into international development.

But I know I’m not the only one to find their year abroad hard. I recently received a one-line Facebook message: “You were right about study abroad.” Another friend said she cried down the phoneline to her friends and family. Even the most confident and extraverted person I know told me there were times when he wondered why he wasn’t enjoying studying abroad.

Of course, there will be people who love the experience. There was also be people who find it hard at first but then find it gets better. That confident and extraverted friend of mine found the second semester much easier.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from doing study abroad. If you are thinking about doing it, don’t panic. It might be the best year of your life. But it might not be and there’s nothing wrong with that.

As study abroad experiences go, I know mine could have been a lot worse. Academically, the year was fine. It turned that I really was able to make sense of 2-hour lectures in French. Although I lacked close friends in Paris, I did have one or two friends. There were things that I genuinely liked about Paris. And I ended up enjoying my second semester much more than the first. But it was difficult for a lot of reasons.

I ended up living alone in Paris. As an introvert, I assumed that that wouldn’t pose a problem. But it is not easy to live by yourself in a different country.

Unsurprisingly, I struggled with loneliness and homesickness in Paris.

When John Lewis’ Christmas advert was released that year, it was all about loneliness. I remember reading a piece in the Guardian about loneliness amongst young people. It was a painful read. It was just too close to home.

The truth was that I missed my friends in the UK and I found it difficult to develop meaningful friendships in Paris. I made a lot of acquaintances but very few friends.

I began to withdraw during my first term. It’s true I still saw people. I still met up occasionally with my course mates from London. I loved going to the debating society. I always looked forward to my weekly English-language Bible study. Despite all that, my social life felt incomplete.

Sundays were particularly hard. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, when I think of my Sundays in Paris, I think of silence. 

Sunday, for me, isn’t usually quiet. It’s the day when I go to church. But that changed during my few months of my year abroad.

As the first term wore on, I went to church less and less. It was never a conscious decision. My faith remained as important to me as ever, perhaps even more so. But when Sunday morning came, it was so easy for me just to stay at home, even when it meant not seeing anybody else that day. In fact, I dreaded the small talk in French that would follow the evening service. Not for the first time, I felt that everyone I met was judging me for my poor level of French.  But that wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t really going to church anymore. To be honest, I still don’t know why it was so hard for me to go to church.

I first realised something was wrong when someone from the church introduced me as an ‘irregular attendee’. The words came as a surprise. I’ve been a Christian since the age of 14. Both my parents are Christians, so I’ve literally been going to church since before I was born. It was a big thing that that when I stopped going every Sunday, particularly as it was there that I had I made most of my close friends the UK.  I ended up moving church. It helped, but I still never really felt settled there.

It’s difficult, in a way, to separate homesickness and loneliness. Was I homesick because I missed my friends in the UK? Or did I miss the UK itself? It’s probably a mixture of both. Whatever it was, it meant that I really didn’t feel like immersing myself in the culture. Rather than frequenting authentic Parisian cafés, I loved going to Starbucks and Costa on the weekend. Not that I particularly like Starbucks coffee. But going there reminded me of home, even if Starbucks is an American company.

As well as struggling with loneliness and homesickness, I felt left behind when I was in France. Having started university a year later than most people, I had already seen most of my school friends beginning their careers before me. The same thing happened when I was in Paris. While I was stuck doing something I didn’t particularly enjoy, everyone else was getting ready to start a new chapter in their lives. They were going places. I was not.  Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side.  they probably thought I was having the time of my life.

I felt it most when I came back to visit my university friends. Coming back for a few days was a major event for me, but it seemed like less of a big deal for everyone else, even if they were happy to see me.

It’s difficult to put my finger on some of the problems I had during my year abroad. Some things became more stressful for me. I’m generally a very laid-back person. But in Paris, the things that I could have coped with in the UK stressed me out. I never applied, for example, for the French equivalent of the Oyster card. It would have saved me money, but it was just another thing to do. 

Similarly, I never finished my application for the student housing benefit. I dreaded having a phone conversation with an official in French, despite being perfectly capable of doing so.

I hope this doesn’t sound overly dramatic. Even as I write this, I keep remembering things about my year abroad that I did like. But I know that even if it wasn’t like this all the time, it was like this a lot of the time.

Again, I’m not writing this to put anyone off studying abroad. Despite everything I’ve written, I’m still open to the idea. I’ve even applied for a few jobs in other countries. I feel better prepared to live abroad now that I’ve already done it once

No, I’m writing this because I want people to know that study abroad might be different to what you expect. It may be the time of your life, but it might not be.  I think it’s disgraceful that we send thousands of students, including many with mental health problems, to spend a year in a foreign country without being honest with them about that can be like.

More than that though, I’m writing this for those of you who will never study abroad. It’s important that you realise that what study abroad is like for some people. Your support and understanding could make all the difference.

Usually, at this point in a blog, I’d end with a stirring call for socialist resistance in the face of capitalist oppression. Sadly, that seems a bit out of place here, so I’d end instead with some advice about study abroad.

If you’re the person who’s going to study abroad:

• ·        Don’t panic. I’m not trying to scare you. You may love study abroad. You may hate it. Just realise that you there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t enjoy it.
• ·         Live with somebody else if you can. You will appreciate having at least one person to speak to if you are finding it difficult to make friends. Don’t feel that you have to live with someone from the country you’re living in. There may be times when you want to speak with someone without having to think about irregular verbs.
• ·         Don’t worry about making mistakes. You’re not in the classroom anymore. You’re not being examined. People just want to understand what you’re trying to say.
• ·         If you’re a Christian, carry on going to church. Don’t feel guilty about going to an English-language church if you think that means you’re more likely to go. Your mental and spiritual wellbeing is more important than your ability to speak another language.

If you meet or are friend with somebody who is studying abroad:

• ·         Don’t assume that someone is having a good or a bad year, not even if you enjoyed studying abroad yourself. If you tell someone that they’re having a wonderful time before asking them how they are finding it, they will probably be less honest in their answer. You might even make them feel guilty for not enjoying their year abroad.
• ·         Remember that bad things can happen in picturesque places. Terrible things like illness, depression and sexual assault can happen anywhere in the world. If somebody has been through that on their year abroad, they’ll have enough to deal with without you telling them that they should have enjoyed their year abroad.
• ·        Make time for them. I feel indebted to the people who made the time to skype me to see how I was doing. You may be stressed or going through things yourself, but your friends in foreign countries might be as well. And they might have to deal with that alone.
•       If you’re a Christian, ask them what they need prayer for. And then pray for them.